Wednesday, August 3, 2011

One-to-One VP8 Video Calling Now Supported in Skype

Our friends at Skype have added support for one-to-one VP8 video calling in Skype 5.5 for Windows. If both users in a Skype video call are using Skype 5.5, the call will use VP8 to encode the video streams for optimum transmission across the Internet. Skype also uses VP8 for group video calling.

In addition to being a great codec for web video, VP8 performs exceptionally well in real-time applications like Skype, and is only getting better as we add features like error concealment (produces high visual quality video frames even under conditions of substantial packet loss) and improved datarate control. To learn more, check out our previous post on VP8 for real-time video.

Skype was one of the earliest supporters of VP8, and we're really excited that millions more of their users will experience the superior quality and performance of VP8 video calling. Download Skype 5.5 for Windows to see VP8 quality for yourself!